La Belle Dame Sans Merci
- Created by: bartleyellie17
- Created on: 12-04-17 14:23
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- La Belle Dame Sans Merci
- written before his death 1821, so may have influenced the subject/tone
- Keats had other experiences with death as he nursed his mother+bro
- written in the form of a traditional folk ballad and is broken into twelve quatrains.
- cyclical structure suggests he is perpetually trapped in a limbo
- conveys inevitability of reality reasserting itself over the illusionary
- cyclical structure suggests he is perpetually trapped in a limbo
- Keats took the title from a poem by the medieval poet, Alain Cartier. It means, the beautiful woman without mercy.
- acts as an ominous signifier, immediately characterising La Belle as a femme fatale
- 1st: 'Knight' conventionally noble=magnitude of a tragic hero
- juxtaposed by 'palely' and 'loitering' denoting absence through the foreboding tone
- 'no birds sing' void of sound and life
- shortened last line means we are left to hang onto the words in silence, deprived of the last syllable in reflection of his deprevation
- 2nd: describes his physical and emotional state 'haggard and so woe begone'
- This repetition with slight variation is called incremental repetition and is a characteristic of the folk ballad.
- juxtaposed by 'palely' and 'loitering' denoting absence through the foreboding tone
- This repetition with slight variation is called incremental repetition and is a characteristic of the folk ballad.
- 4th: describing her eyes as 'wild' may suggest she is untamed and has 'sans merci'
- Alternatively it could present her as prey communicating fear through her eyes
- anaphoric repetition of 'I' in stanza 3-6 deploys the knight as the dominant character
- shift from 1st to 3rd person pronoun in stanza 7 shows a shift in power
- 'took me to her elfin grot' represents the power she has in the dream realm
- Yet La Belles lack of voice throughout the whole poem may present her as a victim as the knight may feel he has merely lost his 'pride'
- women are used as scapegoats for the downfall of men. If they chose not to be subordinated they are seen as a threat to male dominance prevailing
- shift from 1st to 3rd person pronoun in stanza 7 shows a shift in power
- 9th and 10th: 'on the cold hill's side' cold and desolate place could represent the harsh reality of the real world
- cyclical structure suggests he is perpetually trapped in a limbo
- conveys inevitability of reality reasserting itself over the illusionary
- 12th: The knight uses the word " sojourn," which implies he will be there for some time. The repetition of language from stanza I also reinforces the sense of no movement in connection with the knight
- cyclical structure suggests he is perpetually trapped in a limbo
- written before his death 1821, so may have influenced the subject/tone
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